#12 SWOT Analysis and Reflection

Following last week's group session, I attempted a new SWOT Analysis for the project's current stage. However, rather than completing lists for the sections; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, 'opportunities' was swapped for 'obstacles' to aid in identifying challenges.

Before completing the analysis, I decided to sum up the project's current state in a short paragraph, including work recently completed, what I am currently doing, and where I may take the project next.

The project's current focus is an exploration of women's appearance on screen compared to men by calculating screen time for both genders and looking at lines spoken. The films are contained within a 'Top Ten' created from a group of top 100 lists. The Top Ten is in my previous blog post. I chose to select the Top Ten in this way to avoid personal bias in the selection process. Once the data is collected, starting with The Godfather, the results are likely to be displayed as infographics with the design style inspired by film iconography.

Following the SWOT analysis, I referred back to the proposal submission, proposal feedback and midpoint submission (featured in a previous post). I think it is essential to reflect on previous work to continue to improve and move forward throughout the project.

After reading through both the proposal and feedback, I noticed how the project's direction has changed, particularly in recent weeks. Rather than create a visual representation of the presentation of women in films, the focus has become a data comparison between male and female characters. It was identified in the proposal feedback that there was a lack of visual experimentation contained within the submission. At this point, visual experimentation conducted has been a slow process. From this point, more rapid and regular experimentation needs completing to aid in visual ideation. It has been noted in feedback that I should consider translating some themes discussed within the proposal. The aim is to address the current lack of visual experimentation in the coming weeks and explore how graphic design can be used to communicate complex themes.

Within the midpoint submission, I went through the steps taken following the submission of the proposal. During the early stages of the project, themes were sorted and identified; however, this work has not been used. The purpose of this work should be considered as a method of exploring how graphic design can communicate complex themes. Visual experiments conducted were time-consuming and no longer seem to have a place in this project. For future work, leave investigations in the early stages before spending time to develop further. This way, development can occur when the work has a confirmed use. Hopefully, the wireframes will be useful later in the project as a guide for some initial ideas for the final artefact.